![Arctic Ocean bathymetric features](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Arctic_Ocean_bathymetric_features.png)
The Eurasian Basin, or Eurasia Basin, is one of the two major basins into which the
Arctic Basin
The Arctic Basin (also North Polar Basin) is an oceanic basin in the Arctic Ocean, consisting of two main parts separated by the Lomonosov Ridge, a mid-ocean ridge between north Greenland and the New Siberian Islands. It is bordered by the contin ...
of the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
is split by the
Lomonosov Ridge
The Lomonosov Ridge (russian: Хребет Ломоносова, da, Lomonosovryggen) is an unusual underwater ridge of continental crust in the Arctic Ocean. It spans between the New Siberian Islands over the central part of the ocean to Elle ...
(other being the
Amerasia Basin). The Eurasia Basin may be seen as an extension of the
North Atlantic Basin through
Fram Strait
The Fram Strait is the passage between Greenland and Svalbard, located roughly between 77°N and 81°N latitudes and
centered on the prime meridian. The Greenland and Norwegian Seas lie south of Fram Strait, while the Nansen Basin of the Arctic ...
. It is further split by the
mid-ocean Gakkel Ridge
The Gakkel Ridge (formerly known as the Nansen Cordillera and Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge) is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is located in the Eurasian Basin of the ...
into the
Nansen Basin
The Nansen Basin (also Central Basin, formerly Fram Basin) is an abyssal plain with water-depths of around 3 km in the Arctic Ocean and (together with the deeper Amundsen Basin) part of the Eurasian Basin. It is named after Fridtjof Nansen. The ...
and the
Amundsen Basin. The latter basin is the deepest one of the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
and the geographic
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...
is located there.
The Eurasian Basin is bounded by
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
, the
Lomonosov Ridge
The Lomonosov Ridge (russian: Хребет Ломоносова, da, Lomonosovryggen) is an unusual underwater ridge of continental crust in the Arctic Ocean. It spans between the New Siberian Islands over the central part of the ocean to Elle ...
, and the
shelves of the
Laptev Sea
The Laptev Sea ( rus, мо́ре Ла́птевых, r=more Laptevykh; sah, Лаптевтар байҕаллара, translit=Laptevtar baỹğallara) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, th ...
,
Kara Sea
The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. ...
and
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
. The maximum depth within the Eurasian Basin is reached at the
Litke Deep Litke may refer to: People
* Fyodor Litke (1797–1882), Russian count, geographer, explorer
**features named after him—see
*Raymond A. Litke (1920-1986), American electronics engineer
Placenames
* Litke, Hungary, a village in Hungary
* Litke De ...
with 5449
m depth.
Today, the Gakkel Ridge is the site of some of the slowest
seafloor spreading
Seafloor spreading or Seafloor spread is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge.
History of study
Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener an ...
on the Earth, with 10 mm/yr near the Fram Strait and 6 mm/yr near the Laptev Sea. Initial opening of the Eurasian Basin is constrained by magnetic anomaly and geologic information to the
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...
: it was first created about 53 Million years ago by the spreading of the sea floor.
["Plate Tectonics Model for the Evolution of the Arctic", ''Geology'', vol. 2, Issue 8, p.377 (1974) ]
References
Oceanic basins of the Arctic Ocean
Abyssal plains
{{arctic-stub